Bone may become fractured or prone to compression fracture or collapse due to various conditions, including osteoporosis, avascular necrosis, cancer, trauma, or other disease. If not successfully treated, fractured or weakened bone can result in deformities, chronic complications, and an overall adverse impact upon the quality of life.
Minimally invasive surgical procedures have been developed that can be used to treat fractured bones. Such minimally invasive procedures can reduce pain, post-operative recovery time, and the destruction of healthy tissue. In minimally invasive surgery, the site of pathology is accessed through portals rather than through a significant incision, thus preserving the integrity of intervening tissues. These minimally invasive techniques also often require only local anesthesia.
Minimally invasive surgical techniques are particularly desirable for spinal and neurosurgical applications because of the need for access to locations deep within the body and the danger of damage to vital intervening tissues associated with conventional “open” access techniques. The development of minimally invasive spinal procedures, for example, for repair of vertebral compression fractures, has resulted in reduced recovery time and decreased post-operative pain as such procedures require minimal, if any, muscle dissection and can be performed under local anesthesia.
Minimally invasive procedures for reducing a vertebral compression fracture (“VCF”) can include inserting a bone tamp, such as an expandable balloon, curette, and/or other device into a vertebral body. The bone tamp can be used to create a void, or interior cavity, in the cancellous bone in the vertebral body. The void can be filled with a filling material, such as a bone cement, in order to provide interior structural support for cortical bone.
In certain applications, it may be desirable to provide structural support to a bone structure after a void has been created inside the bone structure. For example, a bone tamp may be utilized to create a void inside a vertebral body and displace an endplate of the vertebral body to restore the height of the vertebral body. In certain clinical situations, it may be desirable to provide structural support to the endplate in order to maintain the position of the endplate after the bone tamp has been removed prior to injection of bone cement to fill the void.
In certain disease states, such as osteoporosis, vertebral bodies may be particularly susceptible to VCF. Moreover, patients who have suffered a VCF may be at risk for additional VCFs. The occurrence or reoccurrence of VCFs may be related to collapse of an endplate into the vertebral body. Thus, in certain medical situations, it may be desirable to provide structural support to the endplate of a vertebral body to prevent the endplate from collapsing. In clinical situations in which the height of a collapsed vertebral body has been restored, it may be desirable to provide structural support to maintain the height of the endplate.